Recessionary Conditions Drag Textiles Trade Down

In May 2009, The ITCB (International textiles and Clothing Bureau) released its first issue of ITCB Newsletter, exchanging and publishing some news, views and analysis of textiles and clothing. The following article would present you their ideas of the influence of the recessionary economic conditions on textiles trade.
 
A couple of months ago, the WTO forecast that "the collapse in global demand brought on by the biggest downturn in decades will drive exports down by roughly 9% in volume (i.e., real terms) in 2009, the biggest such contraction since the Second World War".

As if to prove the forecasters right, textile and clothing imports in the United States, by far the single largest import market for the sector, plunged by over 11% in terms of quantity and close to 13% in terms of dollar value in the period January-March 2009 compared to the same period last year. If the trend lasts through the remainder of the year, it will have shaved some $11 billion worth of trade off the level in 2008 which itself was $3 billion less than attained in 2007. 

Unfortunately 2009 first quarter data for the European Union, the other big market, are not yet available. Going by the slackening of demand witnessed in the EU last year, however, it is quite likely that it may also experience a decline even if not as steep as in the United States.

We shall track and present the up-to-date 2009 numbers for both markets in the next issue of this newsletter. Meantime it is worthwhile to present the highlights of these two markets' imports on the basis of available data. 
 
United States
United States' imports of textiles and clothing during 2006-2008 from top 30 and a number of other selected suppliers are provided in Appendix Table 1. Here is a quick-glance snapshot of overall results.

The acceleration of contraction in US import demand that started with the onset of ongoing financial and economic crisis is obvious from the numbers above. Indeed, the current contraction is much deeper than during previous periods of recession (see Charts 1 and 2, opposite column). Notice how much worse is the current decline in United States' imports of textiles and clothing compared to the recessionary cycles in 1990 and 2001.

Chart 1 US imports of textiles and clothing,
percentage change over previous year/period; volume terms

Chart 2 US imports of textiles and clothing,
percentage change over previous year/period; US dollar terms

Highlights of individual suppliers' performance on US market
Seen from individual supplying countries' perspective, however, some have not only managed to defy the odds but continue to perform well. Top of the list from amongst the major suppliers are Vietnam and Bangladesh. Both are among only the four that maintained positive rates of growth in the first quarter of 2009. They logged first quarter increases (in dollar terms) as follows: Bangladesh plus 13.3%; Vietnam plus 6.6%; Egypt plus 10.7% and Haiti plus 35.9%. These increases for the first three are all the more remarkable, given that they had made handsome advances in the last two years, also. 

Other major suppliers suffered varying percentages of decline, the list including China, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Pakistan, Honduras and others.   

In 2008, too, of the major suppliers only a handful registered positive performances (see Appendix Table 1). Noticeably, Bangladesh continued to confound the doomsayers by logging a double digit increase of 10.8 percent in value. Vietnam and Egypt also registered impressive gains of 19% and 5% respectively. The other notable performances were by Honduras and El Salvador. Buoyed by the implementation of their free trade agreement with the United States (CAFTA), both continued to make up for the reverses suffered at the expiry of quota restrictions and increased the volumes of their shipments of textiles and clothing by 9.4% and 5.8% respectively (volume figures not shown in the Appendix Table). 

China and Indonesia were also able to hold their own, managing to stay in the plus column. All other main suppliers saw their exports decline, however. 

The European Union 
Unlike the United States, data on European Union imports become available with a considerable lag. The following is therefore based on data up to 2008.

Mirroring the United States market, the EU market also experienced a contraction in textiles and clothing demand. Here is a quick-glance snapshot of this market. 

 Change over previous year

The higher increase in US dollar terms is attributable to the depreciation of US dollar vis-à-vis the Euro. In this context, it bears mentioning that although Euro is the currency for most major EU countries, it is not common to all its member states. Thus, for example, UK, the second largest importer of all EU member countries, is not a member of the Euro zone. Otherwise, also, for sake of comparability with non-EU countries, it is necessary to review the data in terms of US dollars. Seen in this light, EU imports did not do as poorly as the United States.

Chart 3 EU (27) Imports of Textiles and Clothing from Extra-EU,
percentage change over previous year; volume terms 

Chart 4 EU (27) Imports of Textiles and Clothing from Extra-EU,
percentage change over previous year; US dollar terms

Chart 5 EU (27) imports of textiles and clothing from Extra-EU,
percentage change over previous year; Euro terms

The graphical presentation in Chart 6 highlights the difference in the two markets' performance over the past several years (the EU in both dollar and Euro terms). 

Chart 6 Progression of textiles and clothing imports

Highlights of individual suppliers' performance on EU market
As noted earlier, on the US market only a handful of supplying countries were able to maintain a positive growth trend in 2008. On EU-27 market however the situation was much different, especially if measured in terms of US dollars. The table in the opposite column provides a summary overview. For country-by-country details on EU market see Appendix Table 2.

Thus while only Bangladesh, Vietnam, Egypt, Honduras and El Salvador were able to increase their exports to the US, on the EU market several others also fared quite well (among them China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and others).

Percentage Change in EU (27) T&C Imports from Selected Suppliers 

*The column only to show comparable performance on the US market

Source form China Textile Magazine

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